Swann's Way: Part 1
by Marcel Proust
Remembrance of Things Past (1), In Search of Lost Time (Selections — 1a)
On This Page
Description
Both a psychological self-portrait and a profound meditation upon the artistic process, Proust's seven-part masterpiece "In Search of Lost Time" changed the course of 20th-century literature. "Swann's Way, " the first volume, introduces the novel's major themes and the narrator, a sensitive man drawn in his youth to fashionable society. Its focus then shifts to Charles Swann, a wealthy connoisseur who moves in high-society circles in nineteenth-century Paris and a victim of an agonizing show more romance. This masterly evocation of French society and its rendering of a search for a transcendental reality independent of time, ranks as a landmark of world literature. Unabridged reprint of the classic 1922 edition. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
Proust, forse per la medesima temperie storico-culturale, forse per l'approccio all scrittura - mi dona le stesse sensazioni di Musil, ovvero quelle di un racconto nel quale entrare prendendosi il tempo di aderire soprattutto ai personaggi e alle loro relazioni. Qui a colpirmi è soprattutto la svolta strutturale fra prima e seconda parte di libro, con una preparazione lunga, lenta e spesso estatica (la madeleine!) che esplora le due "parti" della passeggiata, fisica e mentale, e poi un magnifico precipitare in una storia dentro la storia, da cui emergono figure e situazioni indimenticabili ("fare cattleya"!), per poi passare alla breve parte finale, in viaggio fra luoghi e nomi. Bellissimo avvio della lettura della Recherche, ora mi show more restano gli altri sei libri. show less
Reminds of working my way through Tristan Shandy. Another time another age.
Ratings
Members
- Recently Added By
Author Information
Proust is one of the seminal figures in modern literature, matched only in stature by Joyce, Woolf, Mann and Kafka. By the last decade of the 19th century, the charming and ambitious Proust, born into a wealthy bourgeois family, was already a famous Paris socialite who attended the most fashionable salons of the day. The death of his parents in show more the early years of the 20th century, coupled with his own increasingly ill health, made of Proust a recluse who confined himself to his cork-lined bedroom on the Boulevard Haussmann. There he concentrated on the composition of his great masterpiece, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-27). In recent years, it was discovered that he had already prepared a first draft of the work in the 1890s in Jean Santeuil, which was only published posthumously in 1952. Remembrance of Things Past resists summary. Seeming at turns to be fiction, autobiography, and essay, Remembrance is a vast meditation on the relationship between time, memory, and art. In it the narrator, who bears the same first name as the author, attempts to reconstruct his life from early childhood to middle age. In the process, he surveys French society at the turn of the century and describes the eventual decline of the aristocracy in the face of the rising middle class. The process of reconstruction of Marcel's past life is made possible by the psychological device of involuntary memory; according to this theory, all of our past lies hidden within us only to be rediscovered and brought to the surface by some unexpected sense perception. In the final volume of the work, the narrator, who has succeeded in recapturing his past, resolves to preserve it through the Work of Art, his novel. He died of pneumonia and a pulmonary abscess in 1922. He was buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Some Editions
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Swann's Way: Part 1
- Original title
- Du côté de chez Swann
- Original publication date
- 1913
- People/Characters
- Marcel, The Narrator
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 203
- Popularity
- 161,050
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (4.19)
- Languages
- 7 — English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook
- ISBNs
- 16
- ASINs
- 8
